Chapter Twenty

"I can't believe that's me." Arthur sat on the edge of his seat, eyes glued to the TV screen as we watched Murray Franklin on Saturday night. Arthur had just danced across the stage to greet Murray and taken his seat beside the desk.

"You were amazing," I told him.

"I didn't think I could do it. I thought it would be like Pogo's, and I'd just laugh and look like a fool." He stopped talking as the Arthur on screen joked about illness and insulin.

I slid my arm around him, and we watched the rest of the segment in silence, until the next guest came on. Arthur was taping the show, of course, so he could watch it over and over in the future.

"So, what's next?" I asked him.

"I'm going to call Pogo's on Monday and see if I can get a regular slot there. They always have room for extra people, so it shouldn't be hard. Maybe I'll invite Tom one night. And Sophie. Steve and Andy, too."

"They'll all love you."

A few minutes later, my phone rang, and it was Steve. "Hey, Rob. I just saw Arthur on the Murray Franklin show. He was so good! I didn't know that was in the pipeline."

"It was a bit of a surprise. Do you want to talk to him?" I passed the phone to Arthur and he chatted to Steve for a few minutes and invited him and Andy to come to Pogo's and see his next performance. His confidence had been given a huge boost by how well the TV show went.

On Monday, Arthur called Pogo's and secured a slot for every second Friday. When he returned from work that evening, he had more good news. Hoyt had asked him to perform stand-up at a party, with more pay than he would get for his party clown act. It wasn't something Ha-Ha's usually arranged, but after Arthur had told Murray on TV what he did for a living, Hoyt had received a call specifically asking for him.

A couple of weeks later, Steve, Andy, Sophie and I all watched Arthur at Pogo's. He didn't laugh once, but he got plenty of laughs from the audience. The day after that, he performed at the party he'd been booked for. He had a half-hour slot to fill, and he spent every spare minute practising and writing new jokes in his journal. I couldn't go to that and watch, but he told me he lost it briefly before he went in, then managed to pull it together. It went well, and someone attending the party had spoken to him after and asked him to do a similar act for their wife's birthday party.

The interest in Arthur after his TV appearance made a big difference to his outlook. He still had bad days—some very bad days when he couldn't drag himself out of bed, or some idiot on the train tormented him when he got nervous and laughed. But overall, he was more confident and more outgoing, in that he was keen to socialise with Sophie, Steve, and Andy—something else he'd never done before.

We slept together almost every night, mostly at Arthur's place due to me having to get up earlier than him for work. I already had a key to his apartment, so I would get up and creep out, often without disturbing him, but I always left him a note on the pillow. I often thought about us living together. It seemed silly to keep two apartments when we spent every minute together when we weren't at work. My finances were badly stretched due to the large chunk taken out of my salary for Arthur's insurance. I'd had to get a credit card just so I could buy him a Christmas present.

On Christmas morning, we woke up together in my bed and made love. Most of the time I topped, but sometimes he wanted to, and I loved it. Christmas Day was one such occasion. After we came down from our high, I reached under the bed for the small parcel I had hidden there.

"Merry Christmas, Arthur." I kissed his cheek and waited for him to open it.

"For me? Really?"

"Didn't you think I'd get you a present?" Grinning, I took it from his hands. "I can take it back."

"No! No, give!" He grabbed it back. "I was surprised. I've never had a Christmas present."

"Never?" My jaw dropped.

He shrugged. "When I was a kid, my mother's boyfriend controlled any money she had, and buying anything for me wasn't allowed. My clothes all came from charity and mostly didn't fit right. In the homes I was in, we just got Christmas dinner. There was no funding for gifts, or any inclination by the staff. Then the last years—well, my mother was sick. She never left the apartment. I never bought her anything either. After so many years not doing anything for Christmas, I never thought about it."

"I'm so sorry."

"Don't be." He shrugged again. "It makes today extra special, because I have you and you gave me my first gift."

"You might not like it."

"I'll love it. You gave it to me," he said simply, and began to unwrap the box, carefully so as not to tear the paper. When he took the lid off the box to reveal the wristwatch with its leather strap, to replace the cheap, unreliable plastic one he'd worn since I met him, his eyes widened. "It's beautiful. This is really for me?"

"It is. Look at the back."

He took the watch out of the box and turned it over. I'd had the back engraved with "For my Arthur. Love always, Rob."

Arthur started to laugh.

"Hey, come on, none of that." I slid my arms around him. "Stop. Don't get upset."

It took him a minute to catch his breath and stop choking. "I'm sorry," he gasped. "I feel so bad. I didn't get you a gift. I didn't know I should. And you got me something so special."

"You are special, Arthur. I love you. There's nothing to worry about. I don't expect gifts."

"Well, you should. And I'll get you a gift for every Christmas and birthday in the future. We will be together next Christmas, won't we?" His eyes went wide, and his mouth turned down at the corners.

"Of course we will. There's something I wanted to ask you actually. Something you hinted at a while ago, that I've been thinking about since before then. How would you like to move in with me? Or me move in with you? Either, whichever you prefer."

"You want to live with me?"

"Yes, I do, Arthur. I love you. I want to be with you every minute. We spend virtually every night together anyway. But I want us to have just one place together, with all our things in, that we call our home. What do you think?"

He smiled. "I want that. I've wanted that for a long time."

"I know."

"Which apartment would we live in?"

"That's up to you. If you want to stay in yours, I don't mind moving."

"I don't want mine. It's still full of my mother's stuff, and even after the cleaning and painting and all this time, I can still smell smoke from the fire. And it has the fridge. Your fridge is too small to get in," he said practically.

"All right. After the New Year, how about you give up your place? We can move all your stuff to mine before then, of course. And then in a few months' time, we could look for somewhere nicer. With only one set of bills between us, we'd be able to afford to leave this crappy building."

"I never thought I'd ever get the chance to leave." He sighed. "I imagined still being here when I'm seventy, if I even lived that long."

"It's settled, then. A couple of weeks from now, you won't have to ever come back here again."

The next day, we started moving things. I had to work half a shift in the morning, but in the afternoon, we moved all of Arthur's clothes and personal items to my apartment, and bagged up all of the things that had been his mother's, to either go to a charity, or in the garbage. The day after that, we arranged for a charity to collect anything they wanted from the apartment that didn't belong with it, and then it was done. As soon as the holiday period was over, Arthur spoke to the agents and returned his keys. After Christmas Day, he hadn't slept in his place again.

Immediately, the financial pressure lifted from my shoulders. Arthur diligently worked through all the bills with me and insisted on paying exactly half of the rent, the service charges, and everything else. We took turns buying the groceries and had plenty of money left over each month. Arthur was earning more with regular bookings for stand-up at parties in addition to his usual party clown act.

We each put aside some money every month to save for a new place and spent a small amount when we had coinciding days off, so we could take trips out of the city, go out dancing at the club with Steven and Andy. We even went to a Murray Franklin show and sat in the audience.

Arthur kept seeing Tom twice a week and kept up his medication, although eventually the dosage was reduced again. As soon as my six-month probation period at Arkham was over, my monthly income increased dramatically when I didn't have to pay for Arthur's insurance anymore. I put the extra amount into savings so that by the summer, we could start looking for a nicer place to move to.

November 30th was a Monday. Arthur and I had been together over a year, and finally it was moving day. We had the keys to our new apartment on the north side of the city, and a truck waited outside while two burly guys began carrying our belongings out to the lift in batches.

The new apartment was on the fourth floor of a five-year-old block in a gated area. There was very little crime, few rough elements, no dirt and rubbish lying around. Cars were safe outside and for the first time in my life I considered I might get one eventually. I got my licence when I was eighteen but had always thought it was pointless. Trains and buses were a lot cheaper, and when I moved to the city, I would never have risked having one. The areas I'd lived in weren't ideal for parking a car due to expense and danger. You'd be lucky to find your vehicle undamaged if left in the street at night.

The prospect of the move had plunged Arthur into panic. Moving along the corridor to my apartment hadn't been an issue. But this was a much bigger operation. We were moving almost six miles away, to a completely new area. Everything was unfamiliar, and right now, all our belongings were being taken away by strangers.

Arthur laughed hysterically and smashed his head into the bathroom door—something he hadn't done in months. I went to him and drew him away from the door before he could do it again.

"Hey, come on. It's okay." I steered him into the kitchen, out of the way of the movers. One eyed us suspiciously as Arthur carried on laughing wildly.

"Jeez, that guy should be in Arkham," he muttered to his companion. I didn't think Arthur heard the comment, but I did.

"Get on with your job!" I growled over my shoulder and closed the kitchen door to separate us from them. "Arthur, look at me." I gripped his upper arms. "Take a breath. Everything's okay."

"They're—ha, ha, ha—our things!" He wrenched free of me and paced up and down, wringing his hands, then dragging them through his hair. A tuft came out in his hand, and abruptly his laughter turned to tears. He covered his face with both hands and sobbed.

"Arthur, stop. It's all okay. I'm here." I caught him again and drew him into my arms. "Our things will all be on their way to our new place soon. We're not losing them."

"I know," he wept. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm making a scene. Those guys will think I'm crazy."

"The hell with them. They're here to do a job for us, that's all." I rubbed my hands up and down his back, and gradually he stopped shaking.

"I don't want to be here," he said.

"I have an idea. Come with me." I took his hand and opened the door. The two guys, who were in the process of carrying my sofa outside, stared at us with mild looks of revulsion on their faces. I ignored them and led Arthur down the corridor to Sophie's apartment. I knocked on the door, and she opened it a moment later.

"Hello, you two." She looked at Arthur. "What's wrong?"

"The moving guys are here." I didn't need to say anymore. Sophie had got to know us well over the past few months and had witnessed a couple of Arthur's upset episodes.

"Come in." She took Arthur's arm and tugged him into the apartment. "I'll make us some tea. There's a fresh cake just out of the oven, too. Nice plain vanilla, your favourite."

"Thanks, Sophie." I left them to it and went back to my place.

"Not a word," I said to one of the moving guys, as he opened his mouth to speak. He shut it again and got on with his job.

About ninety minutes later, everything that was being taken to the new place was loaded in the truck, and I went to get Arthur. He and Sophie were watching a tape of the Murray Franklin show—the episode Arthur had been on. He was calm and tucking into what he told me was his third slice of cake.

Over the past year, Arthur had gained about thirty pounds and he looked amazing. His skin was healthy, his body well-toned from using the small set of weights I had, and overall, he looked younger. Eating with me had made a huge difference to his relationship with food. He struggled with it to begin with, but mostly he copied me and if I ate, he did the same. Sophie, Tom, and Steven and Andy had all commented on how good he looked, and it made him feel good about himself.

Now, we travelled down in the lift for the last time—at least it would be the last time we'd leave that old apartment. We'd come back to visit Sophie now and again. We headed for the train while the moving guys drove the truck through the city to our new place. We all arrived around the same time, and they began to unload while Arthur and I went up and unlocked the door.

Arthur went straight into the bedroom and closed the door. The window in there had a great view, and if you looked hard enough on a clear day, you got a glimpse of greenery and a river between the buildings. Arthur stayed there while everything was brought up and placed in our new living room and kitchen. I told the guys to leave the bedroom things in the living room and that I'd move them later myself. They seemed relieved not to have to run into Arthur again, and quickly left as soon as the last box was deposited on the floor.

Immediately, I opened the bedroom door. Arthur stood with his hands on the sill, staring out at the distant river.

"They've gone, darling." I wrapped my arms around him from behind and rested my cheek against his.

"I'm sorry about earlier."

"It's okay."

"Maybe we can go and see the river someday soon," he said. "It looks like a nice place for a picnic."

"We could do that at the weekend. I'm sure there must be a bus or something that goes that way. There might even be a way to go down the river on a boat."

"I'd like that."

I kissed his ear. "I love you so much, Arthur."

"I love you, too."

"I have something for you." I removed my arm from his waist and slid my hand into my pocket. I'd been waiting for the right moment for a while, and this was it.

"What is it?" He turned his head to look at me.

I covered his left hand with mine, where it lay on the sill, and slid the silver ring onto his third finger. "We can't do this properly; the law won't let us. Maybe one day things will be different. But for now, I want you to know you're mine, always, and I'm yours. This ring is a symbol of my devotion to you."

Arthur lifted his hand to look at the ring, amazed. "You want to marry me?"

"Yes. It can't be official, but to us it's real."

Arthur turned around, put his arms around my shoulders, and pressed his face into my neck. "Thank you, Rob. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'll get one for you, too."

I hugged him tighter and we stood there together by the window, silent, each thinking of our future. For the first time in my life I was truly happy, all because I helped a clown on a train.